African Journal of Agricultural Research Vol. 4 (9), pp.

772 - 780, September, 2009

Available online at http://www.academicjournals.org/AJAR
ISSN 1991-637X 2009 Academic Journals

Review

Production of bioethanol from sweet sorghum:

A review
A. Almodares1* and M. R. Hadi2
1

Department of Biology, University of Isfahan, Isfahan-Iran.

Department of Biology, Sciences and Research Branch of Fars, Islamic Azad University, Iran.

Accepted 3 August, 2009

The consumption of bioethanol as biofule may reduce greenhouse gases, gasoline imports. Also it can
be replaced with lead or MTBE (Methyl tert-butyl ether) that are air and underground water pollutants,
respectively. Plants are the best choice for meeting the projected bioethanol demands. For this scope, a
comparative analysis of the technological options using different feedstocks should be performed. Our
research and other studies indicate that sweet sorghum can be used as a feedstock for ethanol
production under hot and dry climatic conditions. Because, it has higher tolerance to salt and drought
comparing to sugarcane and corn that are currently used for biofuel production in the world. In
addition, high carbohydrates content of sweet sorghum stalk are similar to sugarcane but its water and
fertilizer requirements are much lower than sugarcane. Also, sugarcane is not a salt tolerant plant. On
the other hand, high fermentable sugar content in sweet sorghum stalk makes it to be more suitable for
fermentation to ethanol. Therefore, it is suggested to plant sweet sorghum for biofule production in hot
and dry countries to solve problems such as increasing the octane of gasoline and to reduce
greenhouse gases and gasoline imports.
Key words: Sweet sorghum, carbohydrate, bioethanol, biofuel.
INTRODUCTION
Each year, fossil energy resource is reducing in the
world. Therefore, a substitute should be found. There are
many crops available for producing energy such as sweet
sorghum which not only produce food (Anglani, 1998 ),
but also energy (Reddy et al., 2005), feed (Almodares et
al., 1999; Fazaeli et al., 2006) and fiber (Murray et al.,
2008a,b). Sorghum can be classified as sweet, grain and
forage types (Almodares et al., 2008b). Sweet sorghum
like grain sorghum produces grain 3 - 7 t/ha (Almodares
and Mostafafi, 2006). But the essence of sweet sorghum
is not from its seed, but from its stalk, which contains high
sugar content (Almodares et al., 2008c). In general, it can
produce stalk 54 - 69 t/ha (Table 1) (Almodares et al.,
2008c).
The sugar content in the juice of sweet sorghum varies
in different varieties (Almodares et al., 1994a). The Brix
range in different varieties of sweet sorghum is 14.32 -

*Corresponding author: E-mail: aalmodares@yahoo.com. Tel.:

+98-3117932794. Fax: +98-311-7932792.

22.85% (Table 2) (Almodares and Sepahi, 1996).

Besides having rapid growth, high sugar accumulation
(Almodares and Sepahi, 1996), and biomass production
potential (Almodares et al., 1994a), sweet sorghum has
wider adaptability (Reddy et al., 2005). Also it is well
adapted to sub-tropical and temperate regions of the
world and it is water efficient. Sweet sorghum has many
good characteristics such as a drought resistance (Tesso
et al., 2005), waterlodging tolerance, salinity resistance
(Almodares et al., 2007a; Almodares et al., 2008) and
with a high yield of biomass etc.
In addition, sweet sorghum is a C4 crop with high
photosynthetic efficiency. Thus development of sweet
sorghum will play an important role in promoting the
development of agricultural production, livestock
husbandry (Fazaeli et al., 2006), energy sources (biofule)
(Nahvi et al., 1994a, b), refining sugar, paper making etc.
Carbohydrates, which are present in sweet sorghum, can
be nonstructural such as sugars and starch, or structural
such as cellulose, hemicellulose, and pectic substances
(Anglani, 1998). The chief sugars present in sorghum
kernels are the monosaccharides glucose and fructose,

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773

Table 1. Comparison of sugarcane, sugar beet and sweet sorghum in Iran.

Sugarcane

Sugar beet

Sweet sorghum

Crop duration

About 7 months

About 5 - 6 months

Growing season

Only one season

Only one season

About 4 months.
One season in temperate and
two or three seasons in
tropical area.

Soil requirement

Grows well in drain soil

Water management

36000 m /h

Grows well in sandy loam; also

tolerates alkalinity
3
18000 m /h

Crop management

Requires good
management

Greater fertilizer requirement;

requires moderate management

Yield per ha
Sugar content on weight basis
Sugar yield
Ethanol production directly
from juice

70 - 80 tons
10 - 12%
7 - 8 tons/ha

30 - 40 tons
15 - 18%
5 - 6 tons/ha

12000 m /h
Little fertilizer required; less
pest and disease complex;
easy management.
54 - 69 tons.
7 - 12%.
6 - 8 tons/ha.

3000 - 5000 L/ha

5000 - 6000 L/ha

3000 L/ha.

Harvesting

Mechanical harvested

Very simple; normally manual

Very simple; both manual and

through mechanical
harvested.

the disaccharides sucrose and maltose and the

trisaccharide raffinose. According to the kind of sugar in
the stalk, it can be divided into saccharin- type sweet
sorghum and syrup-type sweet sorghum (Anglani, 1998).
Saccharin-type sweet sorghum, which mainly contains
sucrose, can be used for refining crystal sugar. Syruptype sweet sorghum, which mainly contains glucose, can
be used for producing syrup. Sugars content in sweet
sorghum stalk juice mostly were sucrose and invert
sugars which invert sugars are included glucose,
fructose, maltose and xylose (Almodares et al., 2008c).
Also, they reported that mannose, galactose and
arabinose were not detected in sweet sorghum juice.
Therefore, it seems that using carbohydrates in the stalk
(sucrose and invert sugar) is suitable for ethanol
production for biofuel because these carbohydrates are
easily converted to ethanol. Although, ethanol can be
produced from sweet sorghum grain (Figure 1) but it
needs more process for converting it's starch to glucose
that later will be converted to ethanol (Jacques et al., 1999).
In addition, the produced baggas after juice extraction
can be used for ethanol production (Jacques et al., 1999)
or animal feed (Jafarinia et al., 2005). However, presently
it is not economically feasible to produce ethanol from
sweet sorghum baggas (Drapcho et al., 2008). The aim
of this review is to summarize the information available
on sorghum carbohydrates for biofule production.
Sweet sorghum agronomy
Sweet sorghum cultivation and practices are simple and
readily adoptable (Almodares et al., 1997b). It is a short

All types of drained soil.

3

day plant (Almodares et al., 2000; Rezaie et al., 2005),

and most varieties require fairly high temperature (Reisi
and Almodares, 2008) to make their best growth. The
cereals (Tesso et al., 2005) and tolerate a wide range of
soil conditions (Almodares et al., 2008e). Sorghum tolerates compacted subsoil and can stand high press wheel
pressure at planting. It tolerates a pH range of 5.0 to 8.5
(Smith and Frederiksen, 2000) and some degree of
salinity (Almodares et al., 2007a, 2008a, 2008c, 2008),
alkalinity and poor drainage (Almodares et al., 2008e). It
also will grow on heavy, deep cracking vertisols and light
sands (Smith and Frederiksen, 2000). The seed of sweet
sorghum should be planted deep enough to give it
moisture to germinate and allow its roots to grow down
through moist soil into subsoil moisture, ahead of the
drying front (Almodares et al., 2008e).
Planting time (Almodares and Mostafafi, 2006) usually
start when the air temperature is above 12C (Almodares
et al., 2008e). Late planting reduces the length of the
growing season, yield and carbohydrate content
(Almodares et al., 1994a). Also, it may cause late and
troublesome harvest and may expose the crop to pests
and diseases and other hazards which are dominant at
the end of the crop season (Almodares et al., 2008e). Balanced fertilization can increase yield (Rego et al., 2003).
Nitrogen fertilizer and its application time (Almodares et
al., 1996) promotes sucrose content and growth rate in
sweet sorghum (Tsialtas and Maslaris, 2005). Application
of adequate amounts of K fertilizer increase yield responses than increasing levels of nitrogen fertilizer alone
(Pholsen and Sornsungnoen, 2004; Almodares and
Mostafafi, 2006; Almodares et al., 2006; Almodares et al.,
2008d; Fazaeli et al., 2006) Sweet sorghum is harvested

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Table 2. Mean comparisons among 36 sweet sorghum cultivars, lines and

hybrids regarding stem yield, Brix, Sucrose and purity at university of
Isfahan, Iran (Almodares and Sepahi, 1996).

Genotypes

Stem Yield
-1
(t ha )

Brix
(%)

Sucrose
(%)

Purity
(%)

39.14

21.96

14.39

66.71

Cultivars
Roce
Vespa

84.53

20.99

13.05

74.59

Brandes
MN1500

77.14
83.71

18.72
20.71

8.92
12.00

46.39
57.59

E36-1
Soave

48.00
61.57

18.26
20.73

13.41
13.46

76.02
65.00

M81-E
Sumac

103.57
44.43

16.01
21.12

10.26
12.85

65.10
60.10

Sofrah
SSV-108
SSV-94

85.57
62.85
70.14

19.63
22.25
20.64

12.61
13.97
11.75

64.05
62.26
57.12

SSV-96
Theis

62.00
100.14

22.54
19.10

13.71
7.26

60.10
37.59

Foralco
Rio

97.71
95.00

20.40
22.36

12.64
16.06

60.83
71.31

S-35
Turno

58.43
39.86

19.78
11.16

11.58
6.00

58.75
35.86

Satiro
Wary

27.86
126.42

17.16
15.84

10.33
7.85

60.02
49.40

IS 686

61.43

16.54

9.00

54.39

IS 16054
IS 18154

51.85
42.14

21.07
19.04

11.73
12.71

55.83
66.71

IS 6962
IS 9639

43.00
54.00

23.01
21.77

13.61
14.31

58.85
65.23

IS 2325
IS 6973

59.57
33.43

20.70
22.85

14.28
14.21

60.18
61.88

IS 4546
IS 19273

56.43
46.28

22.03
20.29

13.05
15.04

60.12
73.69

IS 4354

33.86

17.66

9.80

55.28

A1 x IS 6973

83.28

16.46

9.53

57.17

A13 x IS
1273

97.00

21.18

14.26

66.78

A1 x IS
19261

88.13

18.69

11.82

63.04

A1 x IS
14446

87.13

16.51

10.51

62.89

A45 x IS
14446

124.13

17.95

13.36

74.06

A1 x IS
19273

128.85

17.82

13.00

73.51

A13 x IS
14446

113.56

14.32

10.73

74.40

Lines

Hybrids

Almodares and Hadi

775

Figure 1. Proposed layout for ethanol production and by-product from sweet sorghum.

at milk stage (Ranjbar and Almodares, 2002;

Almodares et al., 2007b). Experiment crop can withstand periods of drought better than mostpotential for
sweet sorghum production can be increased through
selection and development of adapted cultivars
(Almodares and Sepahi, 1996). The aim of agronomy in
sweet sorghum is to increase productivity with focus on
biofuel and improved feedstock supply duration as
follows.
i) Water and fertilizer (macro- and micronutrients) effects and their interaction on sugar, grain and bagasse
yield and quality.
ii) Effect of day length, temperature and their interaction, on sugar, grain and bagasse yield and quality (and
help identify suitable cultivars for season/location).
iii) Crop rotation experiments to identify the most productive and sustainable cropping systems for different
ecosystems.
Sorghum carbohydrate
The chief nonstructural carbohydrate in grain (Somani
et al., 1995) of sweet sorghum is starch while sucrose is
the main carbohydrate content in the stalk which is dominant form transported in the plant. Subramanian et al.
(1994) have reported that cultivars with white or pale
yellow seeds are most suitable for starch production.
Both alpha and beta amylases (Reisi and Almodares,
2008) are sugars (Beta et al., 1995). The primary sugars

present in grain of sweet sorghum are fructose, glucose, raffinose, sucrose and maltose. In sorghum
leaves, sucrose is translocated and transformed into
starch during the development of grains (Smith and
Frederiksen, 2000).
Grain plus stem of sweet sorghum has been shown to
yield more fermentable carbohydrates than other fuel
crops (Murray et al., 2008b).
In addition, the grain can be used for production of
high fructose syrup (Hosseini et al., 2003) and animal
feed (Ebadi et al., 1997; Azarfa et al., 1998). Therefore,
sorghum is an excellent crop for biomass production.
The high nonstructural carbohydrate content of its vegetative biomass can be fermented to methane or ethanol
(Reddy et al., 2005). Ethanol production by fermentation of sugar solutions obtained from sweet sorghum
varies widely among years at different locations, fertility
(Almodares et al., 2006, 2008d), moisture, planting/harvest dates (Almodares et al., 1997a; Almodares and
Mostafafi, 2006), preclude a strict linear association
between number of frost free days (Almodares et al.,
2007b). In stems the extent of sucrose accumulation
varies among cultivars (Table 2) (Almodares and
Sepahi, 1996; Almodares et al., 1997a).
Sorghum nonstructural carbohydrates contents are
affected by temperature, time of day (Almodares et al.,
2000), maturity (Almodares et al., 1994b), cultivar
(Almodares and Sepahi, 1996), culm section, spacing
and fertilization (Almodares et al., 2008d). Shading significantly reduces panicle and leaf laminae dry weights

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of sorghum (Kiniry et al., 1992). Environmental conditions such as water quality (Almodares and Sharif,
2005, 2007) and also growth stage (Almodares et al.,
2007c) and maturity is a factor a affecting carbohydrate
content (Almodares et al., 1994b). In the sweet sorghum, sucrose, glucose and fructose contents increase
after anthesis (Almodares et al., 2008c). In stems, nonstructural carbohydrates contents increase after preboot
(Almodares et al., 2008c) and reach a maximum level
near post anthesis (Almodares et al., 2008c).
Senescence and nonsenescence affect levels of
sugar accumulation in the culm of sorghum cultivars
(Vietor et al., 1990). The nonsenescent cultivars contain
more carbohydrates at all maturity stages than the
senescent cultivars. They reported that harvested
senescent and nonsenescent sorghum hybrids at three
stages of maturity: grain filling, black layer and postblack layer. Plants were shown to be physiologically
mature when the black layer formed in the pedicel of
kernels at the panicle base. McBee and Miller (1990)
reported that closer spacing significantly increased total
carbohydrates at the anthesis stage. Sugar production
of sweet sorghum was compared with sugarcane and
sugar beet and the results showed that sugar production from sweet sorghum is cheaper than both sugar
cane and sugar beet (Blas et al., 2000). Therefore, it
can be used as a supplementary sugar crop (Kualarni
et al., 1995). So, it seems that through cultural practices, breeding and physiological manipulation can
increased the carbohydrate contents in sweet sorghum
plants and because of sweet sorghum has high amount
of sucrose, glucose and fructose which is easily converted to ethanol by microorganism of Saccharomyces
cerevisiae. Thus, sweet sorghum is a suitable plant for
biofuel production.
The important of ethanol in biofule
One method to reduce air pollution is to oxygenated fuel
for vehicles. MTBE (Methyl tert-butyl ether) is a member
of a group of chemicals commonly known as fuel
oxygenates (Fischer et al., 2005). It is a fuel additive to
raise the octane number. But it is very soluble in water
and it is a possible human carcinogenic (Belpoggi et al.,
1995). Thereby, it should be substituted for other
oxygenated substances to increase the octane number
of the fuel. Presently, ethanol as an oxygenous biomass
fuel is considered as a predominant alternative to
MTBE for its biodegradable, low toxicity, persistence
and regenerative characteristic (Cassada et al., 2000).
The United States gasoline supply is an ethanol blend
and the importance of ethanol use is expected to
increase as more health issues are related to air quality.
Ethanol may be produced from many high energy crops
such as sweet sorghum (Figures 1 and 2), corn, wheat,
barely, sugar cane, sugar beet, cassava, sweet potato
and etc (Drapcho et al., 2008). Like most biofuel crops,

sweet sorghum has the potential to reduce carbon

emissions. In addition, among the plants, sweet sorghum has the following characteristics (Almodares et
al., 2008e):
i) It is an efficient converter of solar energy, as it
requires low inputs and yet, a high carbohydrate
producer.
ii) As a drought-tolerant crop with multiple uses.
iii) It has a concentration of sugar which normally varies
between 12 - 21%, directly fermentable (that is, no
starch to convert).
iv) It can be cultivated in temperate, subtropical and
tropical climates.
v) All components of the plant have economic value the grain from sweet sorghum can be used as food or
feed, the leaves for forage, the stalk (along with the
grain) for fuel, the fiber (cellulose) either as mulch or
animal feed and with second generation technologies
even for fuel.
vi) Its bagasse, after sugar extraction, has a higher
biological value than the bagasse from sugarcane,
when used as feed for animals.
vii) Its growing period is shorter (3 - 5 months) than that
of sugarcane (10 - 12 months), and the quantity of
water required is 1/3 of sugarcane.
viii) In tropical irrigated areas sweet sorghum can be
harvested twice each year (by ratooning) and its production can be completely mechanized.
ix) It has some tolerance to salinity.
x) It can produce large quantities of both readily
fermentable carbohydrate and fiber per unit land area.
Therefore, based on the above characteristics, it seems
that sweet sorghum is the most suitable plant for biofuel
production than other crops under hot and dry climatic
conditions. In addition, possible use of bagasse as a byproduct of sweet sorghum include: burning to provide
heat energy, paper or fiber board manufacturing, silage
for animal feed or fiber for ethanol production. However,
since sweet sorghum is at a relatively early stage of its
development, continued research was needed to obtain
better genetic material and match local agro-economic
conditions. The challenge is to harvest the crop, separate it into juice and fiber and utilize each constituent for
year-round production of ethanol.
Sweet sorghum juice is assumed to be converted to
ethanol at 85% theoretical, or 54.4 L ethanol per 100 kg
fresh stalk yield. Potential ethanol yield from the fiber is
more difficult to predict (Rains et al., 1993). The emerging enzymatic hydrolysis technology has not been
proven on a commercial scale (Taherzadeh and Karimi,
2008). One ton of corn grain produces 387 L of 182
proof alcohol while the same amount of sorghum grain
produces 372 L (Smith and Frederiksen, 2000).
Sorghum is used extensively for alcohol production
(Kundiyana, 1996; Bulawayo et al., 1996; Smith and
Frederiksen, 2000; Gnansounou et al., 2005), where it

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777

Figure 2. Mass balance of sweet sorghum juice extraction and ethanol production
(Prasad et al., 2007).

is significantly lower in price than corn or wheat (Smith

and Frederiksen, 2000). The commercial technology
required to ferment sweet sorghum biomass into
alcohol has been reported in china (Gnansounou et al.,
2005). One ton of sweet sorghum stalks has the
potential to yield 74 L of 200- proof alcohol (Smith and
Frederiksen, 2000). Therefore, it seems that because
ethanol can be produced from both stalk and grain of
sweet sorghum (Figure 1), so it is the most suitable
crop for ethanol production using for biofuel comparing
to other crops such as corn or sugarcane.
Sweet sorghum
production

stalk

processing

for

ethanol

Juice extraction
Juice is extracted by series of mills (Almodares et al.,
2008e). The juice coming out of milling section is first
screened, sterilized by heating up to 100C and then
clarified (Quintero et al., 2008). The muddy juice is then

sent to rotary vacuum filter and the filtrate juice is sent

to evaporation section for concentration (syrup to ethanol). The juice can also be directly sent to fermentation
section (Figure 1) (juice to ethanol). Depending on the
scheme selected the juice can be concentrated using
evaporators to attend various brix. In case of juice to
ethanol (no syrup), it is advisable to partially increase
the concentration of juice to 16 - 18 brix. The syrup
which needs storage for using during off season needs
to concentrate to minimum 65 brix (normally 85 brix).
Fermentation
Fermentation is a multidisciplinary process based on
the chemistry, biochemistry and microbiology of the raw
materials. Juice or syrup is converted into ethanol by
the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Sugar is converted to ethanol, carbon dioxide and yeast biomass as
well as much smaller quantities of minor end products
such as glycerol, fusel oils, aldehydes and ketones

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Afr. J. Agric. Res.

(Jacques et al., 1999).

Distillation and dehydration
In the distillation section, alcohol from fermented mash
is concentrated up to 95% v/v. This is further concentrated to produce ethanol with 99.6% v/v (minimum)
concentration. The treatment of vinasse generated in
the distillation section can be done using following
option:
Concentration of part of vinasse to 20 to 25% solids
followed by composting using press mud available and
concentration of rest of the vinasse to 55% solids and
use as liquid fertilizer.
Since Iran has dry and hot climatic conditions
(Almodares, 2000) therefore sweet sorghum has
emerged as a leading candidate for liquid sugar
(Almodares and Sepahi, 1997) and biofuel production
(Nahvi et al., 1994a) with minimum inputs (Almodares
and Sepahi, 1997).
Processing ethanol production from sweet sorghum
grain
The ethanol production processing from sweet sorghum
grain (Figure 1) is similar to corn and it can be
described according to Quintero et al. (2008). After
washing, crushing and milling the sweet sorghum
grains, the starchy material is gelatinized, liquefied and
saccharified using -amylase and glucoamylase enzymes to produce glucose. Fermentation, distillation
and dehydration processing of grain sorghum are
similar to the sweet sorghum stalk. However, the byproducts of grain is not similar to the stalk because
DDGS (dried distillers grains with solubles) as a coproduct of the ethanol production process from grain is
a high nutrient feed valued which is used by the
livestock industry.
Conclusion
It is clear that fuel ethanol from sweet sorghum is the
best choice to be implement under hot and dry climatic
conditions regarding both economic and environmental
considerations. Because, sweet sorghum has higher
tolerance to drought (Tesso et al., 2005), water logging
and salt (Almodares et al., 2008, 2008a), alkali and
aluminum soils; It may be harvested 3 - 4 months after
planting (Table 1) and planted 1 - 2 times a year (in
tropical areas); Its energy output / fossil energy input is
higher than sugarcane, sugar beet, corn, wheat and
etc specially in temperate areas; It is more water use
efficient (1/3 of water used by sugarcane at equal sugar
production); Its production can be completely mecha-

nized and Its bagasse has higher nutritional value than

the bagasse from sugarcane, when used for animal
feeding.
Also, by implementing agricultural practices such as
adequate water and fertilizers, suitable cultivars or
hybrids, crop rotation, pest management and etc can
increase productivity with focus on biofuel production
(Reddy et al., 2005). In addition, sweet sorghum has
high amount of sucrose (Almodares and Sepahi, 1996)
and invert sugar (Almodares et al., 2008c) which are
easily converted to ethanol (Jacques et al., 1999;
Prasad et al., 2007). Therefore, it seems that sweet sorghum is the most suitable crop for biofuel production in
arid regions of the world. This awareness should push
government of the countries with such climatic conditions to promote the development of projects for fuel
ethanol production from sweet sorghum.
However, social aspects (including environmental
concerns) should play a more significant role in the
selection of the most suitable feedstocks for the alcohol
industry. In this way, financial indicators would not be
necessarily the decisive factors when new large-impact
projects for biofuels production are studied and
implemented in developing countries.
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